We all want more traffic and engagement on our social media pages. Video is the way. But how can an amateur videographer create engaging content?
Yesterday I spent a Sunday afternoon producing my first ever video shot, edited and distributed entirely from free apps on an iPad. Once I had the photos, it took about 15 minutes to edit a 30 second clip, all by touching the screen.
This my first attempt at a video shot and edited entirely on an iPad and it at least looks and sounds professional. The iPad has an excellent HD camera and it is so easy to take great photos, which is the first step to creating a great video.
I used the free apps Instagram and Camera Awesome to shoot and edit the photos, and a free iPad app called Videolicious to add the soundtrack and narration.
The app sent it directly to You Tube and all of my social media pages. It took about 15 minutes, total. It’s amazing how simple it is to do these things with a touch screen — I’m excited about learning more. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AUqq0jMGBQ
The iPad, iPhone and Android and a new generation of free or very inexpensive video apps are going to revolutionize video on You Tube and make it much easier for amateurs and social marketers to produce more engaging short stories they distribute on social media.
This is going to shift social media more and more into a storytelling medium and it will lessen the lag time between an event and when you see the video (usually it takes a few weeks for everyone to edit photos and video and send it out–now that can happen nearly instantaneously).
I’ve been exploring different apps for a while now and like these the best:
– Camera Awesome: This app shoots both video and still photos and while the results are not immediately as cool as what you get in Instagram, there are sophisticated filters than can really enhance the photos and create professional results — antique, funky, psychedelic, frames. Unlike the basic Apple camera and Instagram it lets you zoom in and make adjustments for the lighting as you shoot. The UI is clunky but this is is such a fun app and it’s growing on me.
– Videolicious: The free version of this app lets you splice together 10 clips or photos into a short video, add narration and a soundtrack and upload to social media sites by simply tapping your screen. I’m going to upgrade to the full version and see what it can do. Already impressed.
– Adobe Photoshop Express: The free version is polished and it can do basic edits. The full version at $9.99 is a bargain compared to what Photoshop used to cost on a PC–like hundreds of dollars and took months to learn how to use?
– Instagram: By far the best way to shoot gorgeous photos on an iPad or iPhone, use filters, do basic edits and publish them. You can then use these photos in a video editing app and weave them into a story. Yes, a million users jumped ship last month due to privacy and copyright fears, but I wasn’t one of them.
– Viddy – This the Instagram of video. Viddy lets you capture, enhance and share very short videos with subscribers in your photo stream, exactly like Instagram, and quickly upload them to your social pages or YouTube. The problem is–they’re really short. But celebrities and marketers are already finding ways to use Viddy to virally promote. If they create a version that can shoot and edit longer or more sophisticated videos, this will be a killer app.
– Animoto – I love this application, which turns your still photos into a very sophisticated video with transitions. If they don’t hurry up and move to the iPad they will be eclipsed by the features in Videolicious and other emerging apps nipping at their heels.
What I’d like to see:
– An application that makes it easy to create tasteful, non-cheezy titles and intros. So far the title apps are all oriented towards birthdays, weddings, etc. Please, consider something for the aspiring Indie filmmakers, businesses and documentarians, not just the cliche home user.
Related articles
- Six addictive free apps for shooting and editing social video on an iPad or mobile phone (visibilityshift.com)
Giselle Bisson Visibility Shift 
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